On the recordJanuary 1, 1855
Few slave-mothers know anything of the months of the year, nor of the days of the month.
Said by
Frederick Douglass
Source
gutenberg.orgFew slave-mothers know anything of the months of the year, nor of the days of the month.
Douglass describes the deliberate deprivation of basic calendrical knowledge among enslaved mothers, preventing them from tracking their children's ages.
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To-day the negro, starting from nothing, pays taxes upon six millions in Georgia, and forty millions in Louisiana.
None now denies the ability of the colored race to acquire knowledge of anything which can be communicated to the human understanding by letters.
No power beneath the sky can make an ignorant, wasteful, and idle people prosperous, or a licentious people happy.